National Catholic Reporter: Jan 3-16, 2014http://ncronline.org/rss.xml/4476
enSpreading Christ's lighthttp://ncronline.org/blogs/spiritual-reflections/spreading-christs-light
<span class="field field-name-field-byline field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden">
Mary McGlone </span>
<span class="field field-name-field-blog-column field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden">
Spiritual Reflections </span>
<section class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden">
<p>At first glance, our reading from Isaiah seems to come about a month late. Weren't we just singing with Handel about the people in darkness being caught up in light? Hearing that prophecy during today's liturgy reminds us that that the light, as John says, shone in the darkness that vainly tried to overcome it. Today we remember both the light and the cost and joys of sharing it. Isaiah addressed people forced from their homeland, people whose shared suffering created shared hopelessness, who were figuratively or literally blinded to the possibility of a better future.<br /><br /></p> </section>
Sat, 25 Jan 2014 12:00:00 +0000Anonymous67191 at http://ncronline.orgGun violence myths debunked; quest for profits exposedhttp://ncronline.org/books/2014/01/gun-violence-myths-debunked-quest-profits-exposed
<span class="field field-name-field-byline field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden">
<a href="/authors/dennis-mcdaniel">Dennis McDaniel</a> </span>
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><img alt="ss01032014p04ph.jpg" src="/sites/default/files/ss01032014p04ph.jpg" style="border-style:solid; border-width:0px; float:left; height:180px; margin:5px; width:119px" />THE LAST GUN: HOW CHANGES IN THE GUN INDUSTRY ARE KILLING AMERICANS AND WHAT IT WILL TAKE TO STOP IT<br />
By Tom Diaz<br />
Published by The New Press, $26.95</p>
<p>Though many have seen the problem of gun violence and mass killing in the United States as a matter of moral depravity, few have argued as persuasively as Tom Diaz that the root of the problem lies in the deadly sin of greed. Through a painstakingly researched and carefully documented body of facts and anecdotes, <em>The Last Gun</em> challenges the myths of liberty and security purveyed by the gun industry and the gun lobby that serves it, and exposes the quest for profit that drives these myths.</p>
<p>Some of these myths have been busted before: Those who searched for the unvarnished facts may know that most of the deaths by guns are suicides, not homicides, and that most homicides are of family members and acquaintances. Acquaintances, not masked burglars, are also the most common home invaders, and such invasions most often take place when nobody's home.</p>
<p>However, Diaz also lays bare the enduring and dangerous myth that the proliferation of military-style weaponry has been brought about by the desire of law-abiding citizens who seek to protect themselves from invasive criminals and intrusive government. Rather, Diaz argues that the increasing presence of assault weapons and the increasing number of instances in which they have been used to mow down Americans result from organized efforts of lobbyists and legislators who suffer little to no scrutiny from a timid news media.</p>
<p>Diaz cleverly replays the media "ritual" that follows senseless shootings. It begins with the breathless coverage of shocking events and then proceeds through silent commemorations, interviews with friends and neighbors of victims, speculations on causes, and finally the makeshift memorials of "candles and teddy bears" at the scene of the crime. Conspicuously absent from the daytime dramas created from these disastrous events is any extended coverage of what guns were used and the process by which they were obtained.</p>
<p>Yet, to Diaz, the media's cowardice pales in comparison to the Supreme Court's "snow job" in the 2008 <em>Heller</em> decision that struck down the District of Columbia's ban on the private ownership of handguns. Though gun proponents laud <em>Heller</em> as a triumph of Second Amendment rights, Diaz traces this decision not to frightened D.C. residents seeking a means to secure their persons and property, but to a well-funded and meticulously orchestrated scheme devised by Florida attorneys and libertarian think tanks to dismantle federal regulations, the result of which, as Diaz indicates through statistical probability, is more likely the deaths of innocents, not vicious criminals.</p>
<p>More ironically, those innocent victims tend to be the very people whom the gun lobby purports to protect: women and children. Indeed, women are more likely to be killed by their own or their companion's weapon than saved by them, as Diaz's statistics on suicides and crimes of passion show. He narrates the amazing story of the pistol-packing soccer mom Meleanie Hain, who famously and successfully fought the revocation of her license, only to be shot and killed by her husband in a murder-suicide.</p>
<p>Regardless of these true stories, the gun industry and gun lobby's cant that guns defend the "castle" and represent a constitutionally-protected empowerment of citizens has led Florida to deregulate the concealed-carry laws -- a step that has endangered and killed more police than criminals -- and to enact the infamous "stand your ground" statutes that killed Trayvon Martin and entitle gang members to protect their turf.</p>
<p>Increasingly, the weapons that gang members and mass murderers choose are assault weapons, which, Diaz argues, have simultaneously saved the fortunes of the gun industry and brought about unconscionable loss of innocent life. Responding to the steady decrease in gun sales through the 1980s and faced with the problem of fewer Americans desiring to own guns, the gun industry has manufactured a greater variety of militarized semiautomatic rifles and handguns, aggressively marketing them as fantasy fulfillment for those disinclined to enlist in actual military service. Expensive accessories like holsters, magazines, lasers and the like substantially increase industry profits.</p>
<p>The fantasies purveyed by the gun industry and its proponents owe their persuasiveness to legislation that suppresses the collection and dissemination of facts on guns used in crimes. Relying on the fallacy that public knowledge of tracing of weapons used in crimes to their sources compromises criminal investigations, the National Rifle Association and like organizations have shielded guns and the gun industry from public scrutiny and legal action, and have enabled the myth that militarized weapons actually make us safer. Indeed, that the NRA has wielded such influence is surprising, because as Diaz reveals through the analysis of voting patterns, its ability to sway elections has been grossly exaggerated, not only by the NRA, but by the politicians who lose elections and blame the gun lobby rather than their own unpopular policies or failed record.</p>
<p>Though Diaz's crusade to battle myths with facts entails a staggering amount of data, his book attains its power and readability from such stylistic touches as his contrasting the story of two Murfreesboro, Tenn., natives, one the proponent of child-safety restraints in cars, and the other, a developer of a popular assault weapon. Also, Diaz's allegiance to disinterested analysis doesn't prevent him from characterizing Wayne LaPierre as the "orifice through which [the NRA's] assertions are vented" or likening the fallout of Antonin Scalia's majority opinion on the <em>Heller</em> case to "toxic waste thoughtlessly released into the water supply." Clearly, Diaz hopes to counter the cynicism he perceives in the gun industry with his own invective, which the reader may choose to cheer or tune out.</p>
<p>Diaz concludes with a list of realistic and feasible solutions, and they boil down to a challenge to his readers: Will we become an informed citizenry and support proven public health policies that will truly ensure our safety, or will we surrender to the gun companies and the myths that enrich them?</p>
<p>[Dennis McDaniel is associate professor and chair of the English department at St. Vincent College, Latrobe, Pa.]</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 22 Jan 2014 12:00:00 +0000Anonymous67981 at http://ncronline.orgStrength from weaknesshttp://ncronline.org/blogs/spiritual-reflections/strength-weakness
<span class="field field-name-field-byline field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden">
Roger Karban </span>
<span class="field field-name-field-blog-column field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden">
Spiritual Reflections </span>
<section class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden">
<p>It's difficult to understand the original meaning of today's Deutero-Isaiah passage unless we restore the first six verses to the Lectionary selection. Isaiah 49:1-6 is generally referred to as the Second Song of the Suffering Servant of Yahweh. The disciples of the anonymous prophet (Deutero-Isaiah) responsible for Chapters 40-55 of Isaiah not only passed on his powerful oracles, they also included four reflections on what it meant for him to be Yahweh's mouthpiece. The first three are autobiographical; the last, biographical -- composed by his followers after his martyrdom.</p> </section>
Sat, 18 Jan 2014 12:00:00 +0000Anonymous67186 at http://ncronline.orgIll-at-ease author meanders in exploration of evilhttp://ncronline.org/books/2014/01/ill-ease-author-meanders-exploration-evil
<span class="field field-name-field-byline field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden">
<a href="/authors/timothy-kelly">Timothy Kelly</a> </span>
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p style="margin-left:.1in;"><img alt="01032014p19phb.jpg" src="/sites/default/files/01032014p19phb.jpg" style="width: 120px; height: 180px; border-width: 0px; border-style: solid; margin: 5px; float: left;" />EVIL MEN<br />
By James Dawes<br />
Published by Harvard University Press, $25.95<br /><br />
Why do humans do unspeakable harm to others? This question lies at the heart of <em>Evil Men</em>, James Dawes' study of Unit 731, a Japanese military outfit in World War II that savaged the Chinese population with rapes, wanton executions, human medical experiments and other atrocities -- including, it seems, cannibalization. Dawes has devoted much of his professional life to taking testimony from a group of these soldiers who now regret and abhor their actions. They have since dedicated their lives to exposing their human rights violations and working to keep them from happening again. This is no easy endeavor in a Japanese society committed to obscuring that history and evading responsibility for it.<br /><br />
These Japanese veterans underwent significant retribution for their actions. Many of them spent the first five years after World War II in Siberian prisoner of war camps laboring under inhumane conditions. The Soviet Union extradited those who survived to Chinese re-education camps, where the prisoners reported living comfortably under generous Chinese treatment. The Japanese prisoners there learned the Chinese perspective on the Japanese imperial invasion, and came to understand the great suffering that they had caused. When the Chinese gathered the prisoners together in a civic square one day, they feared that they faced mass execution. Instead the Chinese freed them all, feted them with a goodbye feast, and sent them home to their families. Once home, many of these Japanese veterans established the "Chukiren" group to work for a more cooperative, humane and peaceful world.<br /><br />
This study allows, perhaps compels, Dawes to reflect on the nature of good and evil. If modern philosophy questions whether "objective evil" even exists, Dawes' title suggests that he believes it does. <em>Evil Men</em> hints at no equivocation, after all. And yet the book is nothing but equivocation. Dawes is profoundly ill at ease with his work, and devotes much of his book grappling with the moral implications of interviewing people who have done such horrible deeds. Does it honor them? Mitigate the opprobrium they justly deserve? Offer the wisdom necessary to prevent future atrocities? Constitute "atrocity pornography"? That Dawes devotes his life's work to the study suggests that he has reached an answer, but he conveys an almost paralyzing struggle with the issue. The result is an expansive discourse that dips into but mostly skirts around the interviews that he has done with the Chukiren.<br /><br />
The narrative effect is less one of a directed journey than of a series of meanderings, first in one direction, then another. Dawes confesses that audiences have reacted with frustration to his presentation style at talks and, consistent with his approach, he shares his confusion and angst over why he made this choice. The book is a tough read, and not only because of its very difficult subject matter. Dawes purposefully presents his story through small vignettes and reflections on matters related to his interviews, but provides no standard order. He offers no chronology, survey of atrocities, or exploration of the perpetrators' histories. It offers no clear organizational structure, no sections or chapters. Readers must create comprehensible understanding from the text -- perhaps, as Dawes shares at one point, to better immerse us in the dizzying experience of exploring the evil with which he grapples in his work.<br /><br />
Dawes rewards those who make it through his work with insightful reflections on the nature of evil as Westerners have understood it through time, and the dilemmas that studying that evil generate among some who generate or elicit atrocity narratives. In the end, he never reaches a satisfying answer to the question most readers will bring to the book, as he tempers his intermittent optimism about the human capacity for altruism with an almost despairing cynicism about human selfishness. Are humans evil? Perhaps, Dawes seems to suggest, but focuses this book much more on whether it is acceptable to seek answers through perpetrators' stories.<br /><br />
[Timothy Kelly is department chair and professor of history at St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa.]</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 08 Jan 2014 12:00:00 +0000Anonymous67176 at http://ncronline.orgGive your income equality bubble a pophttp://ncronline.org/news/people/give-your-income-equality-bubble-pop
<span class="field field-name-field-byline field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden">
Heidi Schlumpf </span>
<span class="field field-name-field-slug field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden">
Column </span>
<section class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden">
<p><strong>Column:</strong> The gap between rich and poor in this country is widening, but it's not just about income. Are you living in a bubble?</p>
</section>
Sat, 04 Jan 2014 12:00:00 +0000Anonymous67161 at http://ncronline.orgExhortation sparks political, economic debateshttp://ncronline.org/news/politics/exhortation-sparks-political-economic-debates
<span class="field field-name-field-byline field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden">
Michael Sean Winters </span>
<span class="field field-name-field-slug field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden">
Column </span>
<section class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden">
<p><strong>Column:</strong> Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation <em>Evangelii Gaudium</em> is not a political or economic document, but it has generated debate among politicians and economists.</p>
</section>
Fri, 03 Jan 2014 12:00:00 +0000Anonymous67156 at http://ncronline.orgEditorial: Changing church needs new modelshttp://ncronline.org/news/faith-parish/changing-church-needs-new-models
<span class="field field-name-field-byline field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden">
NCR Editorial Staff </span>
<span class="field field-name-field-slug field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden">
Editorial </span>
<section class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden">
<p><strong>We say:</strong> A shift in demographics, including drops in the number of priests, is changing the face of U.S. Catholicism.</p>
</section>
Thu, 02 Jan 2014 12:01:00 +0000Stephanie Yeagle67071 at http://ncronline.orgDynamic California parish shows benefits of an alternative structurehttp://ncronline.org/news/faith-parish/pastor-dynamic-parish-shows-benefits-viable-alternative-structure
<span class="field field-name-field-byline field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden">
Paul Wilkes </span>
<span class="field field-name-field-location field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden">
Hayward, Calif. </span>
<section class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden">
<p>Steve Mullin is a layman like only a few hundred others in the American church.</p>
</section>
Thu, 02 Jan 2014 12:00:00 +0000Anonymous67046 at http://ncronline.orgPriest proposes plan to heal criminal justice systemhttp://ncronline.org/books/2014/01/priest-proposes-plan-heal-criminal-justice-system
<span class="field field-name-field-byline field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden">
<a href="/authors/michael-kelly">Michael Kelly</a> </span>
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p style="margin-left:.1in;"><img alt="01032014p19pha.jpg" src="/sites/default/files/01032014p19pha.jpg" style="width: 120px; height: 180px; border-width: 0px; border-style: solid; margin: 5px; float: left;" />CAMERADO, I GIVE YOU MY HAND: HOW A POWERFUL LAWYER-TURNED-PRIEST IS CHANGING THE LIVES OF MEN BEHIND BARS<br />
By Maura Poston Zagrans<br />
Published by Image Books, $22<br /><br />
With its title drawn from Walt Whitman's <em>Leaves of Grass</em>, Maura Poston Zagrans' <em>Camerado, I Give You My Hand</em> is an account of David Link as priest, practicing his vocation in the Indiana prison system, primarily the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City, a maximum-security facility for about 2,400 men, 70 percent of whom are convicted murderers and all of whom are serving long-term sentences.<br /><br />
The core of the book assembles tributes to Link's unusual ministry, the phenomenal respect he has earned from the prisoners, his extraordinary capacity to listen and counsel men of any religious or nonreligious persuasion to transform their lives, and his uncommon skills as a healer of inmates with deeply wounded lives.<br /><br />
In an "Afterword" -- the best part of the book -- Link himself spells out a concise "Crime Peace Plan." It is a systematic and realistic critique of the U.S. criminal justice system and argues for change that incorporates, at every step in the criminal justice process, principles of healing or rehabilitation. Proposals in the Crime Peace Plan include:</p>
<ul><li style="margin-left: 0.1in;">
Obliging every lawyer to carry one criminal defense client at all times or pay into a criminal defense fund to sustain good representation;</li>
<li style="margin-left: 0.1in;">
Better, more realistic categorization of crimes to avoid inappropriate incarceration for minor crimes, such as possession of recreational drugs;</li>
<li style="margin-left: 0.1in;">
More flexible statutory sentencing guidelines for judges;</li>
<li style="margin-left: 0.1in;">
A model procedure for modifying sentences;</li>
<li style="margin-left: 0.1in;">
Federal tax credits for employers who hire released offenders.</li>
</ul><p style="margin-left:.1in;">Link graduated from the University of Notre Dame then entered Notre Dame Law School. After law school, he served as a trial attorney in the office of the chief counsel of the Internal Revenue Service in Washington, D.C., then in 1965 joined a large Chicago law firm, specializing in international tax law.<br /><br />
Link was recruited away from private practice to teach taxation at Notre Dame Law School in 1970. He became associate dean in 1971 and served as dean for 24 years. During that time, he worked for Habitat for Humanity, taught at a local Indiana State Prison, and co-founded a highly admired homeless shelter and service center in downtown South Bend, Ind.<br /><br />
After his retirement as dean, he embarked on a hyperactive career as a senior academic administrator -- as the founding dean of a new law school at St. Thomas University in Minneapolis, academic dean at St. Augustine University in Johannesburg, and first president of the University of Notre Dame Australia.<br /><br />
In 2003, with the death of his beloved wife, Barbara, Link eventually followed up on one of her recommendations, attending a Roman Catholic seminary for later-in-life vocations and became a priest-widower with five children and 13 grandchildren.<br /><br />
The book makes a convincing case that Link is the real McCoy -- a gifted, dedicated, caring man who has transformed his retirement years into the fulfillment, rather than the conclusion, of his exceptional career of service.<br /><br />
But coming to that assumption may take, in my experience at least, dealing with the book's unabashed, even shameless style of total idolization. <em>Camerado</em> comprises a relentless parade of encomiums unrelieved by any distance from its subject. I feel I got a sense of the real Link, but it took parting or piercing a kind of mist suffusing the style of this book -- unmitigated by any analytic relief -- of what might best be described as hagiographic treacle.<br /><br />
[Michael Kelly, former dean of the University of Maryland School of Law and chief operating officer of Georgetown University, serves on the board of the National Senior Citizens Law Center, a group of poverty lawyers serving the elderly indigent.]</p>
</div></div></div>Wed, 01 Jan 2014 12:00:00 +0000Anonymous67171 at http://ncronline.orgThe Bill Maher interview of Bishop Morrie you'll never seehttp://ncronline.org/blogs/soul-seeing/bill-maher-interview-bishop-morrie-youll-never-see
<span class="field field-name-field-byline field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden">
Michael Leach </span>
<span class="field field-name-field-blog-column field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden">
Soul Seeing </span>
<section class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden">
<p style="margin-left:.1in;">Bill Maher, the comedian and atheist, taped an interview with my classmate Morrie, the bishop of Paris, Kan., for airing on his HBO show over the holidays. It was pulled. Fortunately, I have a transcript. Here are the highlights, minus the laughs, oohs and ahhs.<br /><br /><em>Maher welcomes Morrie, who comes out dressed in a smile, a burgundy cashmere sweater, and non-iron khakis from Banana Republic. They sit.</em><br /><br /><em>Maher</em>: Well, I must say I didn't expect a bishop to look so dapper. Did you lose your pointy hat on the way here?</p> </section>
Tue, 31 Dec 2013 12:00:00 +0000Anonymous67031 at http://ncronline.org